Human factors/ergonomics researchers have studied how the gender and tone selected for an interactive voice response system, or IVR, affects its user-friendliness.

Share:

Total shares:

FULL STORY

The personality and gender of the automated voices you hear when calling your credit card company or receiving directions from your GPS navigational system may have an unconscious effect on your perception of the technology. Human factors/ergonomics researchers have studied how the gender and tone selected for an interactive voice response system, or IVR, affects its user-friendliness and will present their findings at the upcoming HFES 56th Annual Meeting in Boston.

IVRs have become increasingly popular, particularly with the introduction of mobile technology such as Apple Siri and Iris for Android. Past studies have indicated that users are more responsive to actual human voices than to computer-generated voices, but little research has been completed on the role that voice characteristics play in user perceptions of the technology.

In their upcoming Annual Meeting presentation, "He Says, She Says: Does Voice Affect Usability?" Rochelle Edwards and Philip Kortum conducted a study in which participants interacted with a medical IVR that collected information about their health. Users responded to both male and female voices that spoke in different tones -- upbeat, professional, or sympathetic -- and then were asked to judge the system's usability.

"We have been systematically looking at what affects user performance on IVRs for some time now," said Kortum. "Voice is the major element in an IVR interface, as graphical elements are for a Web page, and this study was a first attempt to understand the impact voice might have on the perceived usability of such systems."

The authors found that although IVRs with male voices tended to be perceived as more usable than those with female voices, they were not considered more trustworthy. The researchers encourage designers to take voice characteristics into consideration when developing future systems.

"Anyone who uses an IVR knows how frustrating they can be," continues Kortum. "Much of this frustration stems from poorly designed IVRs, not from the form of interface being intrinsically 'bad.' This research shows that some simple modifications to the design of these systems can have an impact on the usability of voice interfaces."

July 29, 2015  Viewing aquarium displays led to noticeable reductions in blood pressure and heart rate, a research team found in the first study of its kind. They also noted that higher numbers of fish helped to ... read more

July 31, 2015  Perfectionistic concerns have a positive relationship with overall burnout and symptoms of burnout, research has found. Perfectionistic concerns can create stress, interfere with relationships and ... read more

July 30, 2015  As high school and college athletes hit the fields and courts in pre-season practice, concussion awareness should be part of their education, experts say, as most concussions happen during practice ... read more

Mar. 25, 2013  Being exposed to arguments between parents is associated with the way babies' brains process emotional tone of voice, according to a new study. Infants were found to respond to an angry tone of ... read more

Dec. 11, 2012  Emotion in voices helps capture the listener's attention, but in the long run the words are not remembered as accurately. Does the emotion in our voice have a lasting effect? According to new ... read more

Sep. 21, 2011  The voice can reveal a lot about a person -- their sex, their age, how they are feeling -- and recent studies have even suggested that women's voices might also contain cues that men can read ... read more